Purely in the interests of providing a balance commentary, I am one of those that do believe it is “easier to earn 10 pips with 10 lots than 100 pips with 1 lot”. Although I mean that metaphorically and not literally.
Although maybe the word “easier” is not quite the right description for this comparison. On another thread there was a discussion whether or not the “noise” in price movement is any less on longer term charts than on short term. If the “noise” level is held to be identical on both short and long time frames then it is only a question of scale whether one trades 10 pips off the 15 min chart or 100 pips off the daily chart. And therefore it should be just as easy for someone to trade 10 pips per day as it is for someone else to trade 100 pips over a few days.
But I agree that it is not the same thing at all and both have their problems and requirements -both from the way charts are read and from the character, behaviour and expectations of the trader themselves.
There are maybe not so very many successful day traders on a full time basis, but I remember that Lexys was one here who lived full-time off earnings from day trading. And the 1H/15M timeframes were my bread and butter too for many years, albeit alongside a salaried job that I loved. Nowadays I am migrating more to longer term positions, not because it is easier but because it is far more challenging - but also more relaxing and demands less screen time.
In my opinion, trading the 10-50 pip range is extremely intense, requires an incredible amount of discipline, a huge dose of precision, fast decision-making, and an excruciatingly painful dose of patience. They are very intensive due to the close proximity of both target and stop levels. And that is not suitable for many people. I don’t think these short trades work well as “set and forget”. Also, I would add that short term trading for 10-50 pips tends to work when one only looks as an opportunist, jumping on setups whenever they might appear. But whenever one starts to look for “today’s” trades then the tendency is to pre-empt what might be a good setup starting before it actually exists and…there goes all yesterday’s profits and a bucketful of morale and self-confidence.
Longer term trades are more relaxing in that one already anticipates up-front some degree of swinging which is already reflected in the need for wider stops. Another benefit is that longer term trades often provide multiple opportunities to get out of a position at the end of a trend while it consolidates before taking a new trend. But that does not make it “easier”. At least not in my opinion. I still remember my very first long term trade. It was again EURUSD and a buy and I had planned all the R:R’s, stops, targets etc and everything looked great! This was going to be my big breakthrough into position trading - it immediately fell 95 pips slowly but very surely, and I closed it about 4 hours after opening it! haha! Well that was some years back now and only last year did I feel the urge to re-enter that ring again for another bout.
I do like to demonstrate my arguments with examples and here is one from this morning. I started looking already yesterday to buy into EURUSD. and finished up on the day but I closed it out last night because I had to go somewhere this morning. But the 15m chart this morning offered one of those “100% guaranteed winner” setups that i just had to take a quicky before putting my coat on.
The open was above last week’s close, above last night’s close and above yesterday’s daily pivot - and had started moving up already. I was later into the move than I would have liked but this was good for a few pips still. I only got 7 pips before I had to leave, but it was a chunky position and I left happy - but I would have got my “10 pips+”. But if I was looking for a 100 pips? Well I would be well on my way by now, some 5 hours later, with about 40 pips profit on a still open position which would have been far smaller than my morning trade size - but will I see another 60 pips still on this move? Where do I lock in a profit if it slides back this afternoon? What if I close it with only 15 pips and then it takes off again? Should I look for more than 100 pips? And so on, and so on, and so on…
That was a real dopey trade to offer as an example with 7 pips, but hey, I’m not proud! and it was only to ilustrate a point afterall (and it was all the market was offering at that time)!
So I would settle for short term v. long term being just different with their own demands and their own quirks. To me, this just shows how incredibly versatile trading is and how many varieties and opportunities it provides for all kinds of characters and all kinds of personal situations and circumstances. But I wouldn’t suggest that anything in trading is easy (Nor is anyone else here suggesting that either).
But that is just my take! Over to you…